izigame.me

In Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, you play as Grace, an aspiring musician who, through no fault of her own, ends up having Calliope, the Last Muse, die in her arms - but not before passing on her Muse-ical powers. Grace then gets sucked into a world of myths and monsters, where she must prove her innocence and find Calliope's real killer - using her newly acquired power of making people burst into song.
If this synopsis didn't grab you - move on. There really isn't anything about the game that will change your mind.
I, personally, think it's brilliant.

Since this is a positive review, I'll start with getting what I didn't like out of the way first:
I guess all my disappointments with the game come down to one statement: this isn't an RPG. I don't know why they chose to advertise it as such, but it absolutely isn't.
Since the world "Roleplaying" is in the name, I expected some level of RPG mechanics - maybe you pick a character class, or a set of abilities or stats. Maybe you gain experience and level up to give yourself more options. Maybe some kind of luck based mechanic, where you have certain bonuses and you add them to the roll of the dice to see if you've succeeded.
None of those exist in the game. The closest thing this game has to an RPG mechanic is, you choose a "trait" at the beginning and that trait will enable certain unique choices throughout the game. That's it. Other than that, this is a standard choose-your-own-adventure visual novel. Failure isn't even an option (well, either that or I'm really good at this game and chose the perfect solution every time), the only thing your choices actually change is how you succeed.
The way you play this game is - you sit back and watch a movie, until the game demands you make a choice. Then you sit back and watch the movie some more. That's it.
It would have been nice to have something more. TellTale games at least had some button-mashing to give your fingers something to do.
Okay, now that that's out of the way -
Why did I like it?
First thing I should probably mention on the positive side is, this review is probably a little bit biased, because I'm a sucker for urban fantasy. It's probably my favorite genre. Give me mythical creatures hiding among mortals in a big dark city and I'm a happy man. I'm also a sucker for musicals, mythology (Greek or otherwise), and murder mysteries.
As such, it's not at all surprising that I thought this game's story was exceptional.
The writing is wonderful, full of deep characters and rich, well thought-out world building. All dialogue (and song!) is delivered remarkably well by huge talents like Laura Bailey, Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, Felicia Day and many more great voice actors / singers who gave absolutely flawless performances. The pacing is great, following a standard 3-act structure with constant escalation, and the whole thing comes to a very satisfying conclusion.
The songs are also really good. Some better than others, but I enjoyed all of them. The mechanic of making choices during songs was really cool too - you get to choose what the next verse is gonna be, and sometimes even who's gonna sing it. The lyrics and the music adapt and change, quite seamlessly, based on the choices you make. Different players will actually end up hearing somewhat different songs.
That is, without a doubt, a really cool mechanic and something genuinely special. So much effort must have gone into recording all of those alternative sections, and making sure they all actually work and fit the song is no easy musical feat.
The visuals are pretty, hand-drawn moving pictures. Not really animated, it's more of a slide show really, but it looks good and it gives it somewhat of a comic-book vibe, which I am absolutely okay with. Having the character's mouths actually move when they talk could have been nice, but it's not really an issue. Just make sure to have subtitles on.

There's one last little issue I have. I know I said I'll get the negative out of the way first, but I lied. I just had to leave this point for last, because it's not really a problem with the game, and not something that will affect your enjoyment of your playthrough, but rather it's a problem with the concept itself. Or maybe it's a feature request. You'll see what I mean:
There's no doubt that repetition is a core principle of music. Not just in writing it and structuring it, but in consuming it. The way the public engages with music is - we listen to it, and if we like it, we listen to it again, and again, and again. If we really like it, and we know our way around an instrument (or our own vocal chords), we might even cover it.
The fact that the music in this game changes according to your actions means... you can't really listen to it again. Not easily, anyway. Head over to Youtube to listen to your favorite song again, and chances are - it won't be your version of it. It'll be someone else's. You wanna sing along to it? Well, good luck - who even knows what the lyrics are, since there are so many different possibilities.
This is a pretty fundamental flaw in the concept of the game, and not one that can easily be fixed... but it can be helped somewhat - By adding an in-game menu that just lets you go back and listen to the songs. To your versions, exactly as they were performed with the choices you made in the moment. That's one thing I hoped would exist after I finished the game, and I was disappointed to not find this option.
This can, of course, be avoided preemptively by simply recording yourself playing it. Wish I'd thought of that.
Bottom line Coda
If you like musicals and great stories with phenomenal voice acting, and don't mind gameplay so minimal it can barely be considered gameplay - this game delivers. It's definitely one of the best in the visual novel / interactive movie genre.
If you want deeper gameplay and were simply misled by the "roleplaying" label - I'm happy I could at least save you a bit of money. Go play Baldur's Gate 3 instead, I hear it's good.
As for me, personally - I loved it, and I will definitely have more playthroughs in the future to explore all the different outcomes.